


In Profuse Strains

by billspilledquill



Category: HiGH&LOW (Movies), HiGH&LOW: the Story of S.W.O.R.D. (TV)
Genre: Frienship/love, Gen, Introspection, Microfic, Pre-M1, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27966680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: “That’s why we have to fly,” Smoky said. “Higher than anyone else.”And when Takeshi askedwhere?, Smoky had spread his arms, his eyes half-shut, already in flight.
Relationships: Smoky/Takeshi
Comments: 24
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Listen I only watched the Smoky scenes in the series + movie 1 and half of movie 3. I don’t know plot. All I know is that Smoky deserves better

_Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!_   
_bird thou never wert,_   
_That from Heaven, or near it,_   
_Pourest thy full heart_   
_In profuse strains of unpremeditated art._   
_Higher still and higher..._

_To a Skylark, Percy Shelley_

  
Surely Smoky didn’t mean it, Takeshi thought, but Smoky meant everything he said, or else he wouldn’t say it.

In front of him Smoky was undressing, his naked back to him. Smoky had said, upon seeing Takeshi by the shambled thing people in this street called a door, _Sorry. I admit it is quite an ugly sight._

For a moment he did not know what Smoky was referring to. There was nothing ugly here except for the stripes that hang on the ceiling, but they were familiar. They served as roof.

“I,” Takeshi started. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Smoky waved a hand. The shirt slid down the skin; he had put on his coat again. “What is going on?”

“Someone fainted—”

“Which area?”

“Near the entrance.”

Smoky’s voice softened. “It’s Tanji-san, isn’t it?”

“…yes.”

It always astonished. Even before Smoky took up the role of leader, he had learnt their names. _Family_ , Smoky called them. Takeshi stood there, shifting his weight.

“Takeshi?”

Takeshi looked up. Smoky had walked up to him, his eyes lowering to his hands. A bottle of pills; it rattled in Takeshi’s hand as Smoky’s cold fingers brushed his. A corpse.

The thought frightened him. Takeshi began, “Smoky—”

Smoky shook his head. “Lala likes to buy things that I don’t need,” he said. “I assume this will help Tanji-san’s situation, if anything.”

Takeshi opened his mouth, then shoved the bottle in his pocket. “Okay,” Takeshi said. He felt like he just lost a battle against a very powerful enemy. “I will go give this to him. Good night, Smoky.”

This was not a room, Takeshi was aware. Abandoned buildings were not accommodating for the living. Some rooms were left intact. Smoky refused to live inside them even when offered. He refused and settled in this place that had stripes for roof and the sky as window. It was when Smoky smiled at him that Takeshi was still hovering at the entry.

“Don’t worry,” Smoky said. Light had whitened his hair. He sounded amused. “I won’t undress in front of you.”

When old man Tanji gratefully swallowed pills that were bought for another, Takeshi realised that what Smoky had referred as ugly were the marks against his skin, the deep burns of cigarette stubs, the stretch of dead tissues.

The sky was as black as the hour dictated. There were no clocks in the street. Takeshi climbed to his corner of the room and thought. He thought for a long time, and the day rose anew.

Smoky was not a name. No one got names in a street that didn’t dared to name itself. Nobody were born in this street. No one can be born in a street that didn’t dared to live up to a name. What made this street was Smoky. Smoky was the Nameless Street, and soon everyone forgot that Smoky was not really a name, either.

Lala was sneaking one of those candies to the children when she spotted him. She smiled, and Takeshi can’t help but think that no, she and Smoky weren’t siblings after all. “Hey, don’t tell my brother!” she said. The children giggled.

Pi made a funny face. “Oh yes, we are gonna tell! You bet—”

Takeshi played along. He nodded thoughtfully. “Smoky is going to punish you two…”

The children looked at each other, then they laughed.

“Smoky would never do that!” the boy said. He had two missing teeth.

“Right!” the girl returned fiercely. “Smoky will never do that do us!”

Takeshi found that funny. “Why not? Have you two met Smoky?”

The girl shot up a hand. “I did, I did! He’s got those fluff—”

“ _Fluff_?”

“Yes— _foua foua_. Here.” The girl gestured her shoulders. “Angels have those! Angels don’t hurt children!”

Takeshi wondered if it’s allowed to laugh at children. “Who—”

“Lala told you this, didn’t she?”

Lala gasped. “Smoky! C’mon!”

Smoky walked up to them and scoffed. “I told you not to tell nonsense to kids, Lala. They are going to remember when they grow up.”

But the children were unfazed. They came to tug at Smoky’s coat.

“Can I touch it?” the girl begged. “Ne, can I touch the fluff?”

Smoky scooped her up in one arm, frowning. He kept frowning as the boy also got lifted up as requested.

“Lala.” Takeshi heard Smoky leant over to Lala as the children cheered a goodbye. “Let them eat something with more meat next time. They weight nothing.”

To love Smoky was to love an idea. To hate Smoky was to hate an entire street. Takeshi had seen it in those who trespass the Nameless Street just to meet him, _where is your leader, so young, talented... why are you staying in this rubbish?_ a cigarette in hand, smoke coming in waves. Easy to dispel. The smokes whirling into one whirlpool of thought before disintegrating into the air. After Smoky, there would be nothing.

To hurt Smoky was the same. Smokes in lungs, against his back, black and black and dead and dead. One day Smoky will disappear and people will say that he was ugly like he believed himself to be. Takeshi got scars from defending Pi from other children who tried to attack for food when they were six and got nothing going on for themselves but a pair of worn-out and hole-filled shoes. Pi got scars from defending him. But Smoky shouldn’t be hurt. Smoky shouldn’t be real.

He was hurt. He is real. Ugly, ugly scars. Takeshi squinted against the white of the rising sun, a figure on top of the building bright, flimsy, and fading.

After Smoky, nothing will change.

Takeshi got the hint that Smoky very much meant it when he rushed inside a building on fire with no precautions but a deep breath and a sprint.

The children were crying in Smoky’s arms when he returned from the flaming pits, but they were fine. They were _just fine._

Yet Smoky was heaving blood.

“I know who did it,” Smoky said, the wind whispering.

Yes, Takeshi thought, steadying Smoky’s back, feeling the spine there, the realness of it all. Something ugly about it.

“Let’s get them,” Takeshi said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is just me gushing about Smoky. No plot, no meaning behind anything. Just gushing.

  
The second time it happened, it wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t quite intentional either. Smoky had stood on the edge of the flat rooftop, the shambles on the edge of the world, and had his jacket hung on the rod. His shirt beneath was black, slightly drenched in sweat, and Takeshi was looking.

It wasn’t a new thing, watching Smoky. All the residents in the Nameless Street do it once in a while, the same way one would glance at the moon for the sake of comfort of a cold night. He will be there, perched somewhere high, as though trying to better reach the sky. And people would look. People would follow.

What was different was the big, ugly gashes over Smoky’s shirt, and skin had shown again, from underneath, the healed scars and burns of a past that, like the rest of Smoky, could not be fully told nor fully named.

Takeshi couldn’t see Smoky’s eyes from behind, but he assumed that they were closed. Smoky’s head was tilted to the sky, waves of hair pouring down, the sun right above. There was a holiness to those moments of peace. But Smoky wasn’t peace. Smoky knew he was here, and let him be here on his own free will.

When Takeshi was about to retreat silently back to the shadows, Smoky said, “I may need a new shirt, Takeshi. Can you go check if there’s some left in our stock? Take the one that no one wants. I don’t mind anything.”

Takeshi hesitated before speaking. “Where did you get that?”

Smoky turned slowly to him, his eyes half-lidded. He started lazily, “The shirt has been like this for a long time. Today is too hot for my coat.”

Takeshi wasn’t talking about the shirt, but he let it be, too. “Then why you didn’t say it?”

Smoky smiled, his eyes glancing, unfocused. “I would’ve left it at that, but you saw it, Takeshi. I bet you would tell the others about it, won’t you? Might as well ask before you make this entire street know that its leader doesn’t have a decent shirt on his back.”

“Smoky,” Takeshi said. “This street clothes every one of its citizen.”

Smoky nodded in approval. “I did taught you that, didn’t I.” And Smoky walked towards him, snatching his coat from the rod. “You will be a great leader, Takeshi. I don’t expect less of you.”

Takeshi didn’t felt anger towards Smoky often. The last time it happened was when he made sense of Smoky’s apology. “Stop saying things as though you’re already dead, Smoky.”

“Ah,” Smoky said. “Sorry.”

“Smoky—” Takeshi began. Stopped in his track. “Smoky?”

Takeshi held out his hand. Smoky didn’t even blink. “Smoky? Can you hear me?”

Trembling for god knew why, Takeshi let his head wander to Smoky’s face. The hard skin below the lips, the soft touch of his cheeks. His forehead was burning. Takeshi kept calling his name until Smoky sat down on a piece of broken furniture and finally, blessedly, stared at Takeshi with light in his eyes that spelt for recognition.

“I’m fine,” Smoky said. “Don’t you have patrolling to do?”

“You’re sick.”

Smoky closed his eyes again. It sent Takeshi to the same kind of fear limbo when he saw Smoky run into a building on fire to save some children. “I have been for a long time,” Smoky said. “There are things that matter more.”

“You have a fever!” Takeshi said, desperately trying to make Smoky talk. It seemed to him that if Smoky were to fall asleep, something terrible would happen. “Please, I will go get Lala… I’m sure she will find some medicine for you.”

“She’s been buying them again?” Smoky asked, his voice smaller. “It never works, Takeshi. Tell her to stop buying them and put the money to good use…”

Smoky trailed off, and before his head can hit the ground, Takeshi caught him. From close, Smoky’s entire body was drenched in sweat, and he was breathing. Oh god, he was breathing. Smoky’s lids quivered, the muscles of his visage spasmed. Even in dreams, Smoky would not scream.

In pain, Takeshi breathed in.

Lala, understandably, along with Pi, was furious. Smoky laid on the bed and feigned death to avoid persecution from his sister.

“Mou,” Lala whined. “He’s always like this! Never knows when to stop.”

Pi puffed out his chest and crossed his arms. “Right, right? If Takeshi weren’t there to help Smoky, we wouldn’t have treated him as quickly—”

Takeshi made a gesture of silence. He pointed at Smoky. _He’s awake_ , he mouthed. Pi turned red and clasped his mouth shut. Lala huffed, and wiped her face clean.

“I will go find some extra blanket,” she said, and exited. Pi made a half-hearted excuse and left as well. Takeshi sat on the edge of the bed.

Smoky said, “I’m sorry.”

His voice came as a rasp, then a cough. Takeshi helped him to sit up. After a beat, Smoky continued.

“Are you angry?”

Takeshi let his hand slide away from Smoky’s back. The bumps of scars beneath the fabric. “Not really.”

“I worried you, then,” Smoky said, blinking his eyes open. “I apologize.”

Takeshi made a show of caring, but not too much. The only reason Smoky hadn’t died yet was because of them. If he saw himself as too much of a burden, he would burn himself for them to stare at its ashes.

“Would you take it?”

Smoky stared at Takeshi’s hands. The bowl of medicine. “They don’t do much,” Smoky said. “But I will drink it, if that what you want.”

“Why do you hate it so much? It does work— your fever has lessened.”

Smoky scrunched up his nose and drank. “It smells bad,” Smoky said. “My mother used to give me those.”

Takeshi made sure to keep his eyes levelled to Smoky. To stay impassive. Smoky was drugged and tired; it was the first time he had talked about his family. “For your illness?”

Smoky shook his head, disoriented. “No,” he said. “Pills. She didn’t want to eat them, so she gave them to me.”

“ _Gave_ them to you?”

“Shoved it,” Smoky said, his eyes shut again. “It didn’t do much. She kept screaming.”

Takeshi trembled. He helped Smoky back to bed, his fingers pausing on Smoky’s back again. “She did this to you?”

“Um?” Smoky said. The words slurred together. “What do you mean?”

“Your back—” Takeshi said. Silence. “Smoky?”

Smoky breathed out and slept. Takeshi volunteered to guard Smoky’s room lest of an attack happening. Smoky was alive, Takeshi told himself, and didn’t sleep.


End file.
